The Desperation of American Vision in Its Death Throes

Major-General George Pickett’s gallant charge at Gettysburg against Meade’s entrenched Union divisions, under orders from Longstreet, and whose subsequent decimation of his fighting force led to his immortal lament afterwards to Lee: ‘General, I have no division’?

Or American Vision whining about how hard it is to pay the power bill every month, and accusing an unlikely alliance of leftists and racists of impeding their God-given right to do so?

You would think the answer to this would be obvious. But then far be it from me to ever accuse Joel McDurmon of thinking. Did you know Pickett was a fascist?

Truly, these are dark days indeed for the House That Gary DeMar Built. Turns out recalibrating your entire ministry to pander to the fickle whims of diversified NPCs who fill the rear pews of every Reformed church hasn’t exactly been bringing in the sheaves with much rejoicing. Having successfully alienated AV’s core base of vigorous middle-class reconstructionists/theonomists in order to pander to emotion-driven blacks and Hispanics with huge chips on their shoulders – as well as their white hipster Millennial enablers – it must have come as quite the shock to McDurr that his new customer base isn’t renowned for their munificence. This base also isn’t renowned for being interested in the arcane trivialities that comprise almost all of McDurr’s article output anymore – will he be proffering a brief synopsis on the impact made by Presbyterian chaplains on the Loyalist forces during the Spanish Civil War sometime soon?

Bottom line is: American Vision is broke. Kaput. Mired in the red, and not bloody likely to ever emerge from it again. Of course, one can’t just come out and admit such. Suppose the federal government did that. That might undermine confidence in their performance capabilities, and we certainly can’t have that sort of thing going around. In like manner, McDurr saw fit to pen a self-serving organizational progress report on how things couldn’t be going better for AV and are only going to improve, joy to the world, halls of Shambala, love without end, amen! As you can well imagine, this artificial veneer of sunny days in no way masks the pungent musk of desperation one can detect wafting through McDurr’s phony optimism.

The puff piece is entitled ‘Two major announcements from The American Vision’. Oh, I just bet they are such! Announcement #1 is the unveiling of one of those ‘innovations’ that might have seemed thrilling around the time the first iPhone was launched but now merely warrants a collective shrug of meh: the Worldview Study Bible App!!!!! Perfect for that on-the-go Calvino-Marxist heading to the border to show solidarity with the caravan, because ‘ye were strangers in Egypt’, or something! Let’s let McDurr himself enthuse over what a revolutionary interface he has wrought:

The goal of this project has been to create a full worldview study Bible in electronic format, annotated and linked to materials, resources, audio, video, and more from American Vision and other select sources.

This app will operate similarly to other electronic Bible Apps, with split screens for reading Scripture along with relevant notes, commentary, or other resources. Our notes, however, will cover all aspects of life: government, law, economics, apologetics, eschatology, and much, much more. With the design and features we have planned, the potential for expansion and updates will be unlimited.

And best of all, friends and neighbors – it’s free! Good thing, too. Because when I pull up Galatians 3:28 and get the Worldview commentary on this verse – ‘the meaning couldn’t be clearer. Distinctions are negated in Christ. Only ignorant racists who worship their ancestors Shinto-style would think otherwise’ – I’m going to be thinking that I way overpaid when I installed this ‘free’ app.

But, hey, I’ll play devil’s advocate. So this is the greatest thing ever, and I must have it. It’s available for download now, right?

Well…no. Soon, though!

How soon?

Six to nine months. Probably at least a year, to call it safely. Y’see, we haven’t exactly begun developing the thing yet. But the plans are in place!

Oh, so this ‘big announcement’ is merely a prospectus? That’s more than a little lame. But your programmer’s going to start work on the coding tomorrow, at least?

Well…no. We also need to kinda fund…everything else. Fifty grand ought to cover us…hopefully. But we’re soooooo close to completion, it’s scary!!!

In other words, McDurr is clumsily attempting a bait-and-switch game here, hoping to hornswoggle the same demographic he’s spent his entire tenure as AV head belittling into sending him cash, money orders, or certified checks (he also accepts bitcoin!) to fund a venture that ought to have no more cost and time overruns than, say, your typical Olympics bid. It would be an insult to the intelligence if Joel wasn’t so juvenile and clueless about how the real world works. As it is, I merely shrug it off when a five-year-old calls me a ‘poopfart’. If Dr. M wishes to retain his standing as a pillar of the neo-reconstructionist community, though, it’s a little disingenuous of him to go the Robert Tilton route. Do I at least receive a prayer-shawl or a bottle of Jordan river water for my love donation?

All right, on to Announcement #2. I’m sure this one will be more of a humdinger. Turns out (drum roll)…it’s American Vision’s fortieth anniversary!!! Well, next year anyway. And to mark this grand occasion, McDurr will be unveiling (rather more subdued drum roll)…yet another Reformed conference, which he pathetically tries to jazz up as a ‘big biblical worldview shindig’. All of a sudden I’m a lot more appreciative of the joie de vivre generated by the worldview app prospectus. It’s hardly germane, though, as McDurr promptly drops that hot potato to dedicate the remainder of his status report to the main event: a shameless snivelfest about all the flak AV has taken from the meanies on the big bad internet this past year. No prizes if you manage to guess who gets pinned with the most blame for the trials and tribulations that properly belong on McDurr’s own head:

We have also been attacked by a collage of racist and neo-racist forces. I won’t go into all of the detail, but largely because of the truth in my book The Problem of Slavery in Christian America, a group of dedicated neo-confederate-type opponents spread false rumors and attempted to sabotage American Vision through back door and underhanded activity. One former supporter literally attempted to bribe me to stop writing about “the race issue” and “the Jewish question” with large donations.

When I refused all these forces, concurrently, a small but still significant amount of funds stopped coming in from multiple supporters.

On the one hand, I am glad to see them go. Who wants closet racists hiding under the umbrella of your good will, using the language of your worldview as code to hide their wrongs?

I would not stand for it. I knew full well there would be a price for standing for the truth. I was willing to pay it. But we have indeed had to pay it.

‘Neo-confederate-type opponents spreading false rumors and attempting sabotage through back door activity’. That, in large part, means us at Faith & Heritage, gentle reader. I guess pointing out McDurr’s latent Trotskyism counts as a ‘rumor’, and no doubt this piece he’ll count as ‘sabotage’ once he discovers that his genius marketing ploys aren’t making a dent on AV’s balance sheet. It truly is the height of gall that he tries to spin his horrible business decisions into some kind of principled stand to hound away the reactionaries that ensured the organization remained solvent these forty years past. Proverbs 14:16 tells us ‘a wise man feareth, and departeth from evil: but the fool rages, and is confident.’ I see zero indication that McDurr is at all inclined to depart from the evil egalitarianism he has staked his entire reputation upon, but I do see plenty of indignant wails of ‘it’s not faiiiirrrr!!!!’ whitewashed by a repulsive false bravado. Oh, and quit plugging your mealy-mouthed tract of a book too, Tat-Man. It’s every bit as worthless and dishonest as its author.

Now let’s be fair here. He does spare some of his Job-like lamentation for left-wing internet corporations – Amazon and Stripe chief among them – for denying AV service and exposure on account of their being listed as an SPLC ‘hate group’. That truly is a piddling benefit of the doubt, though, as AV is far, far from being the only Christian group being harassed in like manner. (And at the risk of further self-aggrandizement, I must point out that Faith & Heritage beat you to being put on SPLC’s wall of fame two years previously, me Bucko!) Until you have the combined forces of the Jewish Left baying for your own individual blood, McDurr, you can hardly call yourself a Christian. Whatsa matter? Are the footmen tiring you down? Wait till the cavalry’s on your tail. I also suspect that he only included the leftist ‘onslaught’ against him so that he could cleverly link liberals and racists together Dinesh D’Souza style. Hey, why not steal tactics from the very best?

Nothing in McDurr’s thinly-disguised plea for help is sufficient to convince me AV is worthy of my future support, were I a donor too smitten by the finery of his prose to notice the writing on the wall. This group is the Edmund Fitzgerald, and there’s no way her captain is ever going to guide her safely into Whitefish Bay. There’s no sense in calling back DeMar to pull her off the shoals, either, because in a recent debate he all but acknowledged his tacit conversion to the tenets of orthodox Judaism. McDurr has long been a great one for sneering about how white Christian men need to be re-taught the fundamentals of liberty from Latino and African immigrants. Let him schlup for shekels from the same fount he insists we partake of.

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Faith & Heritage is a consortium of Christian writers from a traditionalist perspective. F&H features a diverse range of opinions among its writers, and any particular opinion expressed is not necessarily indicative of universal agreement among F&H admins or writers.

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Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. - Deuteronomy 32:7-8